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But are we really obliged to posit the existence of such
genera?
Take Substance, for Substance must certainly be our
starting-point: what are the grounds for regarding Substance as
one single genus?
It has been remarked that Substance cannot be a single entity
common to both the Intellectual and the Sensible worlds. We may
add that such community would entail the existence of something
prior to Intellectual and Sensible Substances alike, something
distinct from both as predicated of both; and this prior would be
neither body nor unembodied; for it were one or the other, body
would be unembodied, or the unembodied would be the body.
This conclusion must not however prevent our seeking in the
actual substance of the Sensible world an element held in common
by Matter, by Form and by their Composite, all of which are
designated as substances, though it is not maintained that they
are Substance in an equal degree; Form is usually held to be
Substance in a higher degree than Matter, and rightly so, in
spite of those who would have Matter to be the more truly real.
There is further the distinction drawn between what are known as
First and Second Substances. But what is their common basis,
seeing that the First are the source from which the Second derive
their right to be called substances?
But, in sum, it is impossible to define Substance: determine its
property, and still you have not attained to its essence. Even
the definition, "That which, numerically one and the same, is
receptive of contraries," will hardly be applicable to all
substances alike.
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